Peter Murphy: 5 Albums

Peter Murphy

5 Albums

Label:

Beggars Banquet

Media:

CD

Genre:

Rock/pop

Ratings:

Music

Sonics

With his baritone voice, haunting melodies, brooding stage presence, and dark lyrics, Peter Murphy was tailor made to perform goth rock, a musical style he helped usher in while a member of Bauhaus. Peter Murphy—5 Albums charts the beginning of the solo career Murphy launched after the collapse of that band; stylishly packaged to resemble a hardback book, the 5-CD set includes all his LPs on the Beggars Banquet label along with alternate takes and mixes at the end of each disc. Bookended by 1986’s Should the World Fall Apart and 1995’s Cascade, the compilation captures an artist who, even at the beginning of his solo career, had a distinct sound, and musically no radical transformations occurred during this period. The lyrics, though, took a different turn. If Murphy’s highest-charting single, “Cuts You Up” from his third LP, 1989’s Deep, marks the epitome of angst-ridden goth, Cascade’s leadoff track, “Mirror to My Woman’s Mind,” presents an irony-free and unabashedly romantic song inspired by (of all things) a happy relationship. That said, “Mirror” has such a bewitching sound that even the gloomiest souls can find some comfort there.